THE SISTER of Madhumita Shukla and mother of Sara Singh on Monday warned the BJP against inducting Amanmani Tripathi or his family members into the party. While former UP minister Amarmani Tripathi and his wife Madhumani are currently in jail for the murder of Madhumita, Amanmani — the couple’s son — has been booked by CBI for allegedly killing his wife Sara.

Addressing a joint press conference, Nidhi Shukla and Seema Singh claimed Amanmani and his family members were trying to influence the CBI probe against him. They alleged that Amanmani — who was expelled by the Samajwadi Party in February — had met Yogi Adityanath soon after winning the recent state polls from Nautanwa in Maharajganj district as an independent candidate. This was before Adityanath was named the chief minister of UP.

The two said they had written to Deputy CM and state BJP president Keshav Prasad Maurya, requesting him not to induct Amanmani or his relatives into the party.

“Amanmani and his family members are spreading rumours that they are going to join BJP. It would be an insult to the mandate given by the people of UP to the BJP for maintaining law and order and providing dignity to women if someone like Amanmani is inducted. When I had told former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav about Amanmani’s offence, he had denied ticket to him and handed over the case’s investigation to the CBI. If he joins the BJP, he would try to influence the CBI investigation,” Seema claimed to have written in her letter.

Alleging that “suspicious people” have been visiting her residence in Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar, Seema demanded that Amarmani and Madhumani be sent to a jail outside Uttar Pradesh. She added that she would also challenge the bail granted to Amanmani by the Allahabad High Court.

Nidhi claimed that Amarmani and Madhumani should not be kept in Gorakhpur jail as “they were being allowed to meet more people than what was the norm”. “They should be in Varanasi Central Jail and not in Gorakhpur District Jail. Amarmani is trying to get his family inducted into the BJP so that he can influence the cases against him. I had called the office of Yogi Adityanath after he had met Amanmani. His staff only told me that Amanmani could have come to visit the Gorakhnath Mutt,” she said.

“Amanmani had put up several hoardings in Gorakhpur welcoming Adityanath, when the CM had visited the area after his election. We hope BJP and the CM would realise that it does not need a criminal,” she added.

Amanmani, whose campaign was managed by his sisters and other relatives, had won from Nautanwa while he was lodged in jail. He had bagged 79,666 votes against SP’s Kaushal Kishore Singh’s 47,410. BJP’s Sameer Tripathi had come third.

In its chargesheet filed on February 18, the CBI claimed that Amanmani was guilty of killing Sara by strangulation with a “premeditated plan” of getting rid of her, and portraying a “fake” road accident as the cause of her death. Amanmani is currently out on bail.